Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manufacturing method or a manufacturing apparatus of a display element such as an organic electroluminescence (EL) element, a liquid crystal display element or a field emission display (FED).
Description of the Related Art
Display elements such as organic EL and liquid crystal display elements have the special characteristics of being small, thin, low in power consumption and light in weight, so they are now widely used in various electronic devices. These display elements are becoming larger. Deformation of flexible sheet substrates in forming display elements on the now larger flexible sheet substrates that have been wound into a roll shape greatly affects product yield. For this reason, accurate acquisition of position information (alignment information) of the flexible sheet substrates in the manufacturing process greatly affects improvement of the product yield of liquid crystal display elements.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-173870 discloses a manufacturing apparatus that manufactures an organic EL display element in a roll format as a measure for reduction of organic EL display elements and reduction of running costs. In this manufacturing device, in the case in which an organic EL element is formed on a substrate using a flexible sheet substrate, during alignment of the substrate and the mask, it is necessary to perform alignment of the flexible sheet substrate and the mask using an image recognition camera. Further, this manufacturing device has a first image recognition camera, which confirms the position of the flexible sheet substrate, and a second image recognition camera, which confirms the position of the mask.
However, there are cases in which the flexible sheet substrate contracts due to the heat in the respective processes. For forming a long display element, it is necessary to position the flexible sheet substrate under considering expansion and contraction thereof. In addition, because sliding occurs between the transport roller and the flexible sheet substrate or because there are differences in the rotation speed of the transport roller and the transport speed of the long flexible sheet substrate, it is necessary to appropriately ascertain the actual transport speed of the long flexible sheet substrate.
Aspects of the present invention provide a manufacturing apparatus for a display element that is able to form a display element with high accuracy.